Skeptical skeptics skeptically skeptical of skepticism

Skeptical skeptics skeptically skeptical of skepticism

Michael Shermer is sort of a funny guy, for a skeptic.

I recently watched an old 2008 TED talk he gave on junk science, miracles, etc.  He is good-naturedly arrogant and smilingly condescending to his audience of like-minded materialist progressives.  I mean, we are all good-natured when we are amongst our tribe, right?  (I will write more on tribalism in another post.)  I really liked the talk, which you can view for yourself here.  It was funny and engaging and a little bit embarrassing on behalf of the gullible people who believe strange things.

But what qualifies as “strange”?  And what qualifies as worthy of ridicule or skepticism?  Michael Shermer and all the Michael Shermers out there have their opinions, and they are entitled to them.  And there are hosts of others who disagree with the Michael Shermers about their skepticism, some of the time or all of the time.

This post is not about whether Shermer is right or wrong, or whether he smuggles into his work a priori materialist commitments which cloud his own conclusions (obviously, he does).  Rather, this post intends to be about a tactic employed by critics, skeptics, and debaters everywhere at various times.  If you watch Shermer’s TED Talk, you will witness this tacts at about the 3:45 mark, when Shermer uses a somewhat famous Sidney Harris cartoon.  The cartoon is a funny bit of shorthand which has the multi-faceted purpose of making fun of logical leaps of all kinds. 

Shermer uses the cartoon to (in his words) “completely dismantle the intelligent design arguments”.  The line got laughs and applause, which is not surprising, given the likely predisposition of his audience.

It reminds me of Lloyd Benson’s brilliant one-liner at the hapless Dan Quayle’s expense.  In a televised debate, when Vice Presidential candidate Quayle defended his age and experience by noting that John F Kennedy was of similar age when he because President, Benson gave his famous mic dropping retort:

"Senator, I served with Jack Kennedy. I knew Jack Kennedy. Jack Kennedy was a friend of mine. Senator, you are no Jack Kennedy."

Like Shermer’s line, it roused the crowd.

But does it refute?  Does it make an argument?  Of course, Dan Quayle is no Jack Kennedy.  He’s not Irish Catholic.  He is not the scion of America’s then-first family.  His father is not a bootlegger and criminal.  He is not a womanizer of epic proportions.  There are so many ways that Dan Quayle was no Jack Kennedy.  And yet as put-downs go, it was remarkably memorable and powerful.  Quayle supporters reeled and Benson supporters rolled.  But what of the quip?  Does it demonstrably advance an argument and support it with defensible answers? 

In 1992, we were a vastly different culture.  The Internet and Social Media and Reality television had not yet corroded the American mind.  But even then, we were prone to worship of mic drop moments such as this.  And that is what Shermer’s line is about intelligent design.  He dismisses them with scorn and derision and no little bit of straw man creation.  Easy to win when your opponent is a straw man. 

And humans seem to be an easy mark for the sort of polemical and rhetorical fireworks which have more flash and little substance.  We have been probably for a lot longer than we have recorded history.  Going back in time to the early days of the Church and one of the primordial heresies, we use the attraction of flash.

The teacher’s name was Arius, and he was reaching a startling and novel conclusion about the nature of God and the origin of Jesus the Son of God.  If Jesus was “begotten” (the only begotten of the Father), it means that there was a time before he existed: a time when he was “not”.  There are doubtless deep theological underpinnings to Arius’s heretical conclusions, and the quarrel between Arius and his followers, and the orthodox faithful, led by Athanasius and Alexander. 

The popular appeal of Arius and his heresy was not the answers to deep theological questions, but rather the memorably shallow way in which his message was conveyed to the common folk: a memorable little jingle passed on from person to person, like an earworm from a popular advertisement.  “There was a time when the Son was not.”

It’s got a great beat, and you could dance to it.

Long on flash, but it’s pretty short of substance.

In other words, it’s Michael Shermer and the Sidney Harris cartoon, or Lloyd Benson and his mic drop moment.  It scores points, as in an epic rap battle, but it does not refute an argument.  A “gotcha” moment may be entertaining for the audience, but it does not really win the argument.

The Scriptures tell us to be ready to give an answer for the hope that lies within us; there really are not any recommendations for offering mic drop put-downs of competing ideas.

Our Shepherd

Our Shepherd

The Hebrew word for shepherd is “roi” or “ro’eh” (רֹעִי).  The term is used throughout the Brit Hadashah by Yeshua to describe Himself.  He is the Good Shepherd Who cares for His sheep.  He has come to seek and save the lost.  He told stories in which a shepherd figures prominently (finding the one lost sheep).  He described the lost as sheep without a shepherd.

The allusions are vivid and meaningful and even comforting to readers of the Scriptures.  But I wonder if sometimes we miss the rich and full significance of Jesus’ references to His role as shepherd?

In Jesus’ Bible, the TaNaK, the prophets speak of shepherd, too.  Consider Ezekiel 34.

 ² ‘Son of man, prophesy against the shepherds of Israel; prophesy and say to them: “This is what the Sovereign Lord says: woe to you shepherds of Israel who only take care of yourselves! Should not shepherds take care of the flock? ³ You eat the curds, clothe yourselves with the wool and slaughter the choice animals, but you do not take care of the flock. ⁴ You have not strengthened the weak or healed those who are ill or bound up the injured. You have not brought back the strays or searched for the lost. You have ruled them harshly and brutally. ⁵ So they were scattered because there was no shepherd, and when they were scattered they became food for all the wild animals. ⁶ My sheep wandered over all the mountains and on every high hill. They were scattered over the whole earth, and no one searched or looked for them.
 ⁷ ‘“Therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: ⁸ as surely as I live, declares the Sovereign Lord, because my flock lacks a shepherd and so has been plundered and has become food for all the wild animals, and because my shepherds did not search for my flock but cared for themselves rather than for my flock, ⁹ therefore, you shepherds, hear the word of the Lord: ¹⁰ this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I am against the shepherds and will hold them accountable for my flock. I will remove them from tending the flock so that the shepherds can no longer feed themselves. I will rescue my flock from their mouths, and it will no longer be food for them.
The prophet spells out the role of shepherds (which most, if not all, readers would have understood intuitively because of the prevalence of shepherd in Jewish society and culture.  The shepherd has a clear job to do.  So, how does the LORD treat this abdication, this abuse?

¹¹ ‘“For this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I myself will search for my sheep and look after them. ¹² As a shepherd looks after his scattered flock when he is with them, so will I look after my sheep. I will rescue them from all the places where they were scattered on a day of clouds and darkness. ¹³ I will bring them out from the nations and gather them from the countries, and I will bring them into their own land. I will pasture them on the mountains of Israel, in the ravines and in all the settlements in the land. ¹⁴ I will tend them in a good pasture, and the mountain heights of Israel will be their grazing land. There they will lie down in good grazing land, and there they will feed in a rich pasture on the mountains of Israel. ¹⁵ I myself will tend my sheep and make them lie down, declares the Sovereign Lord. ¹⁶ I will search for the lost and bring back the strays. I will bind up the injured and strengthen the weak, but the sleek and the strong I will destroy. I will shepherd the flock with justice.
 ¹⁷ ‘“As for you, my flock, this is what the Sovereign Lord says: I will judge between one sheep and another, and between rams and goats. ¹⁸ Is it not enough for you to feed on the good pasture? Must you also trample the rest of your pasture with your feet? Is it not enough for you to drink clear water? Must you also muddy the rest with your feet? ¹⁹ Must my flock feed on what you have trampled and drink what you have muddied with your feet?
The LORD Almighty is the Shepherd of Israel.  If Jesus refers to Himself as the Good Shepherd, and his audience would undoubtedly know all the prophetic references to the LORD as the Shepherd, what might they have thought about Jesus’ claims to be the Shepherd?  What title is He claiming for Himself?  Not just the Annointed One, but also the Divine LORD Himself – one with the Father?  It seems that way.

Jesus as the Shepherd is more than just comforting words to remind us of how He loves and cares for us.  It is that, to be sure.  But it is also more than that. It is a not-very-veiled reference to His own Divinity as God the Almighty.

Faith and Healing, Part 2

We have begun exploring faith and healing, but more broadly, this little series is about faith and miracles (healing being a prominent sort of miracle, in terms of significance if not frequency).

Before looking at the questions we raised in our last post, perhaps we should define miracles.  I am sure you know the well-worn quote, which was or was not spoken by Albert Einstein: “There are only two ways to live your life.  One is as though nothing is a miracle.  The other is as though everything is.”  We can begin here, but it’s not exactly a definition.  It is, in fact, a philosophy, an a priori philosophical commitment that miracles are possible or they are not.  If you want to discuss miracles and the role faith plays in them, you first must acknowledge their possibility.  As CS Lewis writes:

“Whatever experiences we may have, we shall not regard them as miraculous if we already hold a philosophy which excludes the supernatural.  Any event which is claimed as a miracle is, in the last resort, an experience received from the senses; and the senses are not infallible…

“The experience of a miracle in fact requires two conditions.  First we must believe in a normal stability of nature, which means we must recognize that the data offered by our senses recur in regular patterns.  Secondly, we must believe in some reality beyond Nature.  When both beliefs are held, and not till then, we can approach with an open mind the various reports which claim that this super- or extra-natural reality has sometimes invaded and disturbed the sensuous content of space and time which makes our ‘natural’ world.” (“Miracles” from God in the Dock)

Miracles are, by definition, a suspension of what one might call “the law of nature” – or the normal order of things, as they are customarily experienced.  As the dictionary has it: “an effect or extraordinary event in the physical world that surpasses all known human or natural powers and is ascribed to a supernatural cause.”  Thus, Jesus walking on top of the water of Galilee or calming the storm with a sharp word or causing to see a blind man are all labeled “miraculous” because they are contrary to what we would call “normal” and “natural”.

Now among the various reactions to reports of this sort are two which deserve some special mention.  One reaction might be to doubt the veracity of the event itself.  The other is to assume that a perfectly naturalistic explanation lies behind the event (one recalls Arthur C. Clarke’s saying that magic is just science we do not yet understand).  I think this inherent skepticism reveals more about the presuppositional baggage of the reactor than it does about the event to which he is reacting.  If one presumes a naturalistic explanation to everything, one will never see miracles.  There are probably hybrid forms of this, even among my tribe of Christians.

Let me lay out my own presuppositional baggage by articulating the two extremes of the miracle spectrum in the Church.  On one end, we have cessationists, those who assert that the Age of Miracles has passed.  When I was a young Fundamentalist, we often quoted the verse from St. Paul’s letter to the Corinthians: “When that which is perfect has come, that which is imperfect will pass away.”  In that thinking, the Holy Bible (only the 17^th Century Authorized Text, by the way) was the perfect which now superseded the imperfect.  There are probably other, more robust arguments for cessationism, but that was the one we yanked from our argument supply.

At the other end of the Miracle Spectrum as the Charismaniacs, of which there is not a monolith, but more of a mosaic.  They are at the far end because of their willingness to believe in the likelihood of the miraculous in everyday workings.  Not “wrong”, just at the extreme end.

And all along this Miracle Spectrum are various hybrids.  C’est moi.  I am not a cessationist.  At least, I am not one any longer.  Something about being baptized into the Holy Spirit and witnessing the supernatural workings of the Holy Spirit will change all that.  My bias is that the gifts Paul describes in his letters are gifts still for today.  Un-explainable healings still happen.  Words of prophecy (future telling) still happen.  The Holy Spirit is alive and well and active and working in God’s people.  But I greet news of healings with a seasoned skepticism.  Miracles are NOT normative; they are exceptional.  They were when Jesus lived; they are now.

So where does this leave us?  It leaves us with questions, which we will answer posthaste…

• Do miraculous (or difficult-to-explain) healings happen today?
• What role does faith play in the seemingly miraculous occurrences (such as healings)?
• If healings happen, how and why?  That is, is it the faith of the one being healed or the faith of the ones praying for healing?
• If healings happen, is faith required?  That is, if neither the receiver of the healing or the “giver” of the healing have faith, will that prevent healing?
• Is healing only given to some select people, or is it universally given to all in the Church?  In other words, is Paul’s choice of words (i.e., “to one”) merely an expression to be taken loosely (as in “everyone is going to see that movie”) or to be taken literally?

Faith and Healing

Faith is described many times and in many ways in the Biblical Text.  It is impossible to please God without faith.  If we have even so small an amount as to resemble a mustard seed – really, really, really tiny – we can bring about the End Times (the moving of the Mount of Olives promised in Zechariah (14:4), which perhaps Jesus was referencing in his oft-quoted “make this mountain move” statement (I think it’s less about the power of faith, incidentally, than it is about Jesus pointing His followers back to the waited-for Great Day).

The myriad ways in which “faith” is used in the Text do present some challenges of intererpration and applicaiton.

In Hebrew, the word most often translated as “faith” or “faithful” is the Hebrew “emunah” (אֲמָנָה), form its root word “aman” (אָמַן), which most often is rendered as “believe”, “confirm”, and “support”…Can I get an “Amen”?  (Same word.)  Emunah was used to describe Moses’ raising of his hands “steadfastly” all day long while Israel defeated her enemies.  In Deuteronomy 7, God is described as “faithful” – the God who is faithful.  And Abraham (in Genesis 15) is described as having “emunah”, which God credited to him as righteousness.

The Greek word translated most often as “faith” is “pistis” (which apparently looks like this in Greek: πίστις, εως, ἡ).  The commentators (I think there is consensus) tell us that “pistis” is always a gift from God, and not something we may produce on our own.  To add to this a bit, “faithfulness” is one of the fruits of the Spirit.  And though we cannot “MAKE” fruit grow by a force of will, we can create ideal climatic conditions for it to be produced by God.

So, let’s return to the title of this piece, and some of the questions which sparked it.

• Do miraculous (or difficult-to-explain) healings happen today?
• What role does faith play in the seemingly miraculous occurrences (such as healings)?
• If healings happen, how and why?  That is, is it the faith of the one being healed or the faith of the ones praying for healing?
• If healings happen, is faith required?  That is, if neither the receiver of the healing or the “giver” of the healing have faith, will that prevent healing?
• Healing is named as one of the gifts given by the Spirit.  The verse (1 Corinithians 12) seems to indicate that it is given to “some” (in fact, the verse specifically says that it is given to “some”, just as “working of miracles” and “the ability to distinguish between spirits”, and “interpretation of tongues”).  So, is healing only given to some select people, or is it universally given to all in the Church?  In other words, is Paul’s choice of words (i.e., “to one”) merely an expression to be taken loosely (as in “everyone is going to see that movie”) or to be taken literally?

I do not know all the answers to these questions.  I think I am content with not knowing answers to them.  Some might call my mental shoulder shrug a cop out, giving up the intellectual struggle when the going got tough.  Maybe they are correct.  Maybe it is a cop out.  But perhaps it’s also a realization that there are some questions which will elude answers this side of eternity and about which sincere Christians everywhere have always disagreed.  And quarreling about such things where answers are ambiguous at best, contradictory at worst, would seem to produce not harmony and love, but division and animosity, about which things we are warned.  See what Paul advised Timothy (2 Tim 2) and Titus (Titus 3).

Even so – even granting my skepticism at finding answers which satisfy all parties – I am approaching these questions with some Socratic thinking.  That is, I am going to attempt to answer them or work toward some answers.  Stay tuned…

Our Redeemer

Our Redeemer

The Hebrew word goel or gaal ( גָּאַל) means “redeemer”.  It occurs in the Hebrew text over 100 times.  The most famous use of the term is the story of Ruth and Boaz, where Boaz acts as Ruth’s kinsman redeemer.

The story is a beautiful and romantic tale of love and character and honor (a sort of Rom-Com of the Biblical variety: boy meets girl, girl pursues boy, boy purchases girl (and her mother).  Anyway…

The whole “redeem” part gets lost, I think, in not so much the translation as in the passage of time and the change of culture.  It’s perhaps worth taking a stroll through the ancient near Eastern (ANE) cultural landscape to look for meanings which have been obscured by our modern Western filters.

Life was hard for our ancient ancestors.  Go back even two generations and life was orders of magnitude harder.  Throw in the absence of electricity, running water, sewage, etc. and you have a potentially brutal life.  What made matters worse for anyone was isolation from your community, your tribe, or your family.  Your whole identity was tied up with who you belonged to: your tribe.  This fact of life was true for all cultures in the ancient days, and it was certainly true in the ANE, where Ruth’s story takes place.

There’s a famine in Israel.  Elimelech (his name means “God is the King), a man from Bethlehem, decides to load up the family and move to Moab, like the Clampetts.  He takes his wife Naomi (her name means “pleasant”) and their two sons.  Tragically, Elimelech dies leaving Naomi a widow.  At least, she is not left destitute because she has her two sons to care for her.  Her boys marry Moabite women, outside their own tribe, because that’s all they had around there, and I suppose the Naomi family set up shop in the land of Moab, foreigners in a foreign land.

Then, the wheels come off: Mahlon and Chilion (Naomi’s sons) die.  Now, Naomi has a real problem.  Whatever land or possessions she might have acquired during her family’s sojourn in Moab were now forfeit.  Woman could not own land.  Her only choice was to return to Bethlehem and beg for food.  Surprisingly, both of her daughters-in-law decide to return with her.  Naomi, bereft of husband and sons, and therefore bereft of protection and provision, encourages these girls to stay in Moab.  Orpah decides to stay in Moab, but Ruth makes a profoundly moving alternative decision: “Where you go, I’ll go.  Where you stay, I’ll stay.  Your people will be my people.  Your God will be my God.  Where you die, I will die.”

Did Ruth understand the implications of her decision?  What could have possessed her to express this loyalty?  (All the daughters-in-law everywhere are aghast, no doubt.)  But Ruth is also prophetic in the sense that she truly became entwined into Israel.

But they are two poor widows with no prospects and no protectors.  Naomi is so bitter at what’s happened to her that she says even her name is Bitter (Mara) from now on, not Pleasant.  Hard to condemn her for that: she literally had nothing.  But God the Provider (Jireh) offers unexpected hope for them both through the hands of Naomi’s relative, Boaz.  Read the whole story for context, but here’s the gist.

Boaz and Ruth meet.  Boaz redeems Naomi, his kinsman, by buying Elimelech’s field (Naomi could not own it because of that whole woman-not-owning-stuff rule).  When he buys the field, he buys Ruth, who becomes his wife.  Boaz redeems Ruth (and Naomi).  By law and custom, when a poor relative is redeemed by a rich relative, their relationship changes.  The Redeemed does not become slave, but they “belong” to the Redeemer in a special way.  Not property, but especially close family and in some way beholden to the Redeemer.  So, Ruth “belongs” to Boaz.

Boaz and Ruth have a son they name Obed.  If you’ve been following along, you know that Obed’s son is Jesse, the father of Israel’s King David.  And down through the years, along comes Jesus, the son of David.  Jesus, the Redeemer of mankind.  As we are in the place of Ruth, the redeemed bride, we belong to our Redeemer.